Innovation in sustainable- new and emerging- technological fields: a patent-based perspective for Greece Paper accepted for publication in: Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2013, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 26-40
Maria Markatou* National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Larissa 41223, Greece,
[email protected] *Corresponding author
Abstract: This paper aims at studying the production of innovation in sustainable- new and emergingtechnological fields based on patent data for Greece. The analysis relies on the theoretical and empirical arguments of the importance of innovation in growth and on its description and measurement through patent data, which have been considered and accepted to be good and reliable innovation indicators for this purpose. The paper examines the Greek case, first presenting all sustainable- new and emergingtechnological fields, second analysing both their importance and their technological content and third linking to industrial sectors in order to have a first indication of their economic direction. The paper also presents the position of Greece at the international context in the above fields, highlighting fields of better and worse performance, thus providing a first kind of empirical evidence on issues that could be integrated in a wider discussion on the Greek innovation policy. Keywords: Environmental innovation; Greece; Innovation; New technological fields; Patents.
Biographical notes: Maria Markatou is regional economist land- planner engineer. She is temporary lecturer and scientific associate at the Technological Educational Institute of Larissa in Greece. She holds a PhD in Economics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and two Msc in Science and Technology Policy from SPRU- UK and in Production Management and Engineering from the University of Thessaly- Greece. Her research interests centres on the management and measurement of intellectual property rights and innovation, innovation and technology management, regional development and national- regional innovation systems.
1.
Introduction
Innovation is a very important factor to corporate success, technological leadership and economic development, both at national and regional level (Buswell, 1987; Malecki, 1991). Schumpeter (1934), with his “gales of creative destruction”, gave a vivid description of the effects of the introduction and diffusion of major technological discoveries and inventions in industry and in the world economy and Romer (1994) emphasized on the role of innovation. As a production factor, innovation affects growth and contributes to the development of nations. According to Porter (1990), innovation, whether it relates to processes, products or organizations, determines the competitiveness of a nation, which depends ultimately on the firms’ ability to innovate. Since the pioneering study on the nature of innovation in the 1970s of both Gibbons and Johnston (1974) and Freeman (1974), many research works have been presented regarding the analysis of innovation. Innovation is the output of innovation process. Innovation process has been considered to be a highly systemic and complex process, which varies across industry, technology and firm size. Particularly for firms, firms develop innovations responding to their market needs and technological challenges. All these factors make innovation difficult to be measured in complete and standardized ways. However, given the importance of innovation for national and firm wealth and welfare, the issue of measurement has become even more demanding. Nowadays, the literature on measurement of innovation is abundant, every day being improved and increased, while now has already succeeded in measuring innovation at firm, sector, regional and national level, as well as in combination to other economic and managerial variables and parameters. The main methodological conclusion that can be derived from the study of the literature on innovation measurement is that innovation can be measured only through its products and only indirectly, through the contribution of relative indicators. One very important category of indicators is patent indicators. The objective of this paper is the study of the production of innovation in sustainable technological fields for Greece, based on patent records. In most cases the term sustainable is directly or indirectly linked to environment. Thus, the paper focuses on the examination of innovation in environmental fields, aiming at providing a deep understanding of the existing situation and an objective argumentation for the development of future policy in this field. The issue of environmental innovation is very important, as it embraces technologies that improve human life and increase economic prosperity. Especially for Greece, environmental innovation could be even more important, as Greece relies on tourism, has still an important agricultural sector, while several industrial sectors dependent on it and enjoys an advantageous physical environment, which needs to be reserved and gradually improved. Results show that 10% of Greek innovations concern sustainable technological fields, which are further specialised in ‘energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources’ and ‘general environmental management’. The above share may be seen of little importance but it is much higher than the mean of the EU-27 members, OECD-members and the World-100 countries, based on their respective patent shares at the three most important Patent Offices (EPO, USPTO and PCT). Therefore, there are some positive signs, but the whole effort has to be given more attention and further strengthened. The paper is structured as follows: Section two discusses the theoretical and empirical framework of innovation in relation to both growth and patent records, which ends up to the
construction of relevant indicators. Section three focuses on some methodology issues, while also describing the data. Section four presents the main empirical results. Section five synthesizes, further discusses the results, also positioning Greece at the international context and comparing its performance with both other countries and different patent offices. Section six presents some concluding remarks, also starting a discussion on what policy should Greece implement towards innovation on this domain.
2.
Bibliography review: Theoretical and empirical evidence
Joseph Schumpeter is considered to be the first economist to focus on innovation and its importance. According to him, innovation is a product (new one or change in an existing), a process new to an industry, an opening to a new market or the development of new sources of supply for raw materials or other inputs and changes in industrial organization (OECD, 2009). Thus, innovation involves many and different elements and parameters and this means that its measurement is difficult due to the broad nature, scope and products of innovation activities. This is the reason that innovation can only be measured indirectly and mainly through the use of indicators. The existing bibliography has proposed several indicators for the description and measurement of innovation. The most common among them are the indicators that derive from R&D, patents and new products (Basberg, 1987; Pavitt, 1988; Archibugi, 1992). A patent is a document, which contains structured and detail information regarding the hidden invention and the probable or future technological innovation. It is accessible to the general public through the dissemination of patent documents by a national or international authorized government agency, such as a patent office (Huang et al., 2003). Each patent document is issued by a patent office and grants the owner a monopoly over the exploitation of a precisely defined technological advancement or incremental improvement (e.g. new device, apparatus, or process) for a stated period of time, which is usually 20 years. Generally an invention can be eligible for a patent, only if the innovation that this invention ‘hides’ is novel, involves a non- obvious inventive step, and could be commercially viable (Dernis and Guellec, 2001; Dernis and Khan, 2004). Data derived from patent documents has been extensively used in the measurement of innovation because of its very important advantages. Among these advantages, is first the fact of the proximity of patents to the inventive and innovative activities, the wide range of fields covered by patents and the so called geographical scope of patents. Second, patents are characterized by their easy accessibility, high reliability and precise definition (Ernst, 2001; Debackere et al., 2002). Third, patent data are accurately recorded and easily elaborated, while they can be used to examine and study different levels and kinds of analysis (e.g. technological, sectoral-industrial, national). Forth, patent data are rather ‘objective’ indicators, as patent documents are examined and eventually granted by a single national patent office, based on specific criteria, while every patent is then classified to sectors, classes and main groups according to the same classification system (OECD, 2009). Finally, in comparison with or in contrast to other data sources, patents are often the only timely measure of rapid technological change, particularly in the context of global competition and an important tool for assessing the performance of technological systems. For example, patents permit the study
of technological change since they represent inventive activity and output from applied research over different fields, countries, and periods of time (Trajtenberg, 1990; Hullmann and Meyer, 2003). However, as every tool of analysis, patent data exhibits also limitations. First, obviously not all inventions become patents and not all patents become innovations. Especially for firms this has a dual meaning. Firms use patent protection in order to be protected from competitors. However, they may choose to use other ways of protection from competition, such as secrecy or very fast introduction to the market. Second, every patent office treats patents equally, while they are not and nor do all patents exert the same economic impact and the same technological and economic value (Gay and Le Bas, 2005; Wang, 2007; Lee, 2009). Third, the propensity to patent differs across countries, sectors, firms, fields and technologies and this difference could overestimate or underestimate the results in terms of performance (Arundel and Kabla, 1998; Makinen, 2007). Meanwhile this difference is partly due to the level of protection afforded by the patent, but also to the possibility of protecting monopoly rights by other means, depending upon market conditions. Forth, there are differences in patent regimes across countries and this means that it is difficult to be certain that one is comparing ‘like with like’. In fact, it is widely accepted that there are differences among the various patent systems (e.g., United States Patent and Trademark Office, European Patent Office, etc.), due to variations in legal, geographical, economic, and cultural factors. For instance, some countries could require multiple patents for the same innovation which could be covered by a single patent in other countries. This study uses patent data as a proxy and measurement indicator to elucidate the Greek production innovation in sustainable technological fields, taking advantage of their positives and also considering their negatives. To the best of knowledge, this paper is the first research effort to study innovation in this domain of empirical analysis.
3.
Methodology and Data
The data for this study is based on patent records and documents during the period 19882010. The rationale behind the construction of the patent database and its elaboration is the result of certain methodological choices that were done for this study. In fact, four methodological choices have been made: The first concerns the data source, the second the decision on working with patent grants instead of using simple patent applications, the third the selection between the different technological classifications and the fourth the level of aggregation. Regarding the first methodological choice it has been decided to use and mainly work, at least for the main body of analysis, with patent data from the Greek Patent Office. This choice has been made for two reasons: First, the main interest of this paper is the examination of the Greek case. Second, the author’s previous research on this field (Markatou, 2008) has shown that Greek inventors usually protect their patents through the national way, as it is cheaper, easier and a more convenient procedure with which they are much more familiar than applying to a broader or external patent office. The choice of using patent grants instead of using mere patent applications (second methodological choice) is related to a choice of
assigning higher value to this study and so to results. Based, therefore, on the fact that a patent is only granted when it contains a technological innovation which exceeds a certain level of newness, only patent grants can guarantee that. The choice of using the IPC system of patent classification (third methodological choice) relies on its main advantage, namely the fact that it is application-based and thus facilitates both the identification of technological innovations and their assignment to different industrial sectors. The IPC is a hierarchy of codes, structured into different levels with several levels of breakdown primarily concerned with the technological characteristics of the invention. The last methodological choice concerns the aggregation level. IPC allows linking patents to one or more economic areas, but only when examining the sub- class level. This is due to the fact that there is no natural or perfect correspondence between technological classifications and economic areas. This problem of classification refers primarily to difficulties in allocating patent data, organised by technological sub-classes, into economically relevant industries or product groupings. In this study the technological sub-class level of aggregation has been used (more than 630 subclasses). There is a need to clarify one more parameter in relation to methodology and this parameter has to do with first the definition of those sustainable fields, second the identification of patents in such fields and third their grouping and classification under specific headlines. Empirical research in this field uses two kinds of methods: The first method is based on the examination of all patent codes classified to each patent according to the international technology classification (IPC) and in relation to these technological fields. Thus, the first method focuses on the technological content of each patent, as derived from its assignment to one or more patent codes and its interpretation. The second method relies on the ‘creation’ of keywords which should be also closely related to those technological fields. Thus, the second method scans every patent in a dual way, both its short description and the interpretation of the technological content of each patent searching for these keywords. Results are based on examining patents using both kinds of methods: The analysis starts by examining all IPC codes assigned to each patent (one or more patent codes), then ‘reads’ both the interpretation of these codes and the short description of every patent and finally classifies each patent to those fields based on their definition. Concerning the third issue, namely that of the patents’ grouping and their classification under specific headlines, the presentation relies on the OECD methodology, which has introduced the following 7 environmental fields and 20 sub-fields: General environmental management Air pollution abatement, Water pollution abatement, Waste management, Soil remediation, Environmental monitoring Energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources Renewable energy generation, Energy generation from fuels of non-fossil origin Combustion technologies with mitigation potential Technologies for improved (1) output and (2) input efficiency Technologies specific to climate change mitigation Capture, storage, sequestration or disposal of greenhouse gases Technologies with contribution to emissions mitigation Energy storage, Hydrogen production, distribution, and storage, Fuel cells
Emissions abatement and fuel efficiency in transportation Technologies specific to propulsion using (1) internal combustion engine, (2) electric motor, Technologies specific to hybrid propulsion, Fuel efficiency-improving vehicle design] Energy efficiency in buildings and lighting Insulation (thermal insulation, double-glazing), Heating (incl. water and space heating; air-conditioning), Lighting (incl. CFL, LED) Based on the above methodological choices, the analysis relies on the elaboration of a patent database, which has been constructed and elaborated especially for this study and according to the following steps: Step one, patent documents in paper sheets have been collected from the Greek Patent Office for the period of 1988-2010. Based on these patent documents a patent database has been constructed, which contains all patents (Greek and foreign) that have been granted by the Greek Patent Office, a total of 7187 patents. Second step, patents by Greek owners (Greek patents) have been separated from patents of other nationalities (foreign patents) based on the address of the assignee or patent owner. This part of patents composes the sample of analysis, which includes 5339 patents. Third step, each Greek patent has been classified to one or more technological sectors, sub-sectors, classessubclasses and main groups (five levels of technology analysis) based on the number of patent codes that the Greek Patent Office has attributed to the referring patent. This means that if a patent has one patent code, it is described based on five levels of analysis, if it has two patent codes, it is described based on ten levels of analysis and so on. Forth step, each patent has been related and corresponded to one or more industrial sectors, indicating this way its potential application or industrial use. This correspondence is based on the main technological content of each patent, thus the first patent code assigned to it at NACE 3-digit level. In this way it is also avoided the problem of overlapping, while being focused on its main potential application or industrial use.
4. 4.1
Main results The overall pattern: major technological fields
The analysis shows that the production of innovation in Greece is widely dispersed among the eight broad technology sectors. At sub-class level of analysis and based on the results of table 1, which presents the 15 most important patent sub-classes in Greece, it can be seen that main fields in ‘human necessities’ are those of (1) ‘preparations for medical, dental or toilet purposes’, (2) ‘harvesting; mowing’, (3) ‘animal husbandry; care of birds, fishes, insects; fishing; rearing or breeding animals; new breeds of animals’, (4) ‘horticulture; cultivation of vegetables, flowers, rice, fruit, vines, hops or seaweed; forestry; watering’, (5) ‘protein compositions for foodstuffs; working-up proteins for foodstuffs; phosphate compositions for foodstuffs’, (6) ‘diagnosis; surgery; identification’, and (7) ‘kitchen equipment; coffee mills, spice mills; apparatus for making for making beverages’. The above fields account for more than 80% of the respective sector. Fields (1) and (6) are related to innovations in ‘medical or veterinary science; hygiene’, which finally lead to ‘pharmaceuticals’ and ‘medical
Table 1 The 15 the most important sub-classes in Greece- Patent activity in sustainable technological fields in Greece Sub-classes Ranking % Taxonomy1 % Sector2 Preparations for medical, dental or toilet purposes 1 4.006 13.089 Containers for storage or transport of articles or materials 2 2.677 13.636 Fixed or movable closures for openings in buildings, 3 vehicles, fences or like enclosures in general 2.620 18.327 Horticulture; cultivation of vegetables, flowers, rice, fruit, 4 vines, hops or seaweed; forestry; watering 2.126 6.948 General building cosntructions; walls 5 2.107 14.741 Animal husbandry; care of birds, fishes, insects; fishing; rearing or breeding animals not otherwise provided for; new 6 breeds of animals 1.956 6.390 Harvesting; mowing 7 1.785 5.831 Machines or engines for liquids; Wind, spring, or weight motors; producing mechanical power or a reactive 8 propulsive thrust, not otherwise provided for 1.652 13.024 Protein compositions for foodstuffs; working-up proteins for 9 foodstuffs; phosphatide compositions for foodstuffs 1.481 4.839 Diagnosis; surgery; identification 10 1.462 4.777 Displaying; advertising; signs; labels or name-plates; seals 11 1.386 13.722 Electric digital data processing 12 1.367 13.534 Kitchen equipment; coffee mills, spice mills; apparatus for 13 making for making beverages 1.310 4.280 Finishing work on buildings
14 15
Buildings or like structures for particular purposes; swimming or splash baths or pools; masts; fencing; tents or canopies in general Production or use of heat not otherwise provided for
1.272 1.234
8.898 9.731
Sustainable technological fields- Main categories General environmental management 1.956 20.396 Energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources 6.076 63.366 Combustion technologies with mitigation potential 0.000 0.000 Technologies specific to climate change mitigation 0.646 6.733 Technologies with potential or indirect contribution to emissions mitigation 0.323 3.366 Emissions abatement and fuel efficiency in transportation 0.285 2.970 Energy efficiency in buildings and lighting 0.304 3.168 Total (share based on total technological taxonomy) 9.588 1 Share of technology sub-class based on the total technology taxonomy. 2Share of technology subclass based on the technology sector it belongs to. Source: Own elaboration of Greek patent data.
equipment’. Fields (2), (3) and (4) concern innovations in ‘agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, hunting, trapping, fishing’, economically ending up to ‘agricultural and forestry machinery’. The 5th field (e.g. protein compositions for foodstuffs; working-up proteins for foodstuffs; phosphate compositions for foodstuffs) is obviously related to ‘food and beverages’, while the 7th (e.g. kitchen equipment; coffee mills, spice mills; apparatus for making for making beverages) to ‘machinery and equipment’, and more specifically to ‘domestic appliances’. The list is complemented by the field ‘performing operationstransporting’ (e.g. ‘containers for storage or transport of articles or materials’), two fields of ‘mechanical engineering- lighting- heating weapons- blasting’ (e.g. ‘machines or engines for liquids’ and ‘production or use of heat’), two fields related to ‘physics’ (e.g. ‘displaying; advertising; signs; labels or name-plates; seals’ and ‘electric digital data processing’), both being classified in similar positions based on the total ranking and four of ‘fixed constructions’. Especially for ‘fixed constructions’, the sector’s most important technologies are related to different aspects of ‘building’, such as (1) ‘fixed or movable closures for openings in buildings’, (2) ‘general building constructions’, (3) ‘buildings or like structures for particular purposes’ and (4) ‘finishing work on buildings’. In total, technologies related to ‘building’ account for more than 80% of the respective sector and are further specialised to ‘doors, windows, shutters or roller blinds in general, ladders’ and ‘locks, keys, window or door fittings, safes’. 4.2
Sustainable technological fields: Main trends
The previous analysis, which presented the overall pattern of innovation in Greece, was necessary in order to focus on the examination of sustainable- new and emergenttechnological fields. This is due to the fact that these fields are included in the above and already described technological fields. For example, alternative energy can be found in different technological fields, which are related to six in total technological sectors, with the exception of ‘natural resources’ and ‘paper- textiles’. The second part of table 1 presents the distribution of patents across these sustainable technological fields, focusing on their main categories (7 in total). Results show that 10% of patents can be included in the above fields. Table 1 also reveals that nearly 65% of patents concern innovations in ‘energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources’, mainly further specializing to ‘renewable energy generation’. Experts on this field identify eight different kinds of energy generation (e.g. wind; solar thermal, photovoltaic, thermal-PV hybrids; geothermal; marine; hydro tidal, stream or damless and conventional). The more detailed analysis shows that most Greek patents are concentrated in solar thermal and hydro energy, both tidal, stream or damless and conventional. Among the rest technological fields, the ‘general environmental management’ is the most important. Its patents concern innovations in ‘waste management’, ‘water and air pollution abatement’. ‘Waste management’ is further specialised into innovations related to ‘solid waste collection’ and ‘material recycling’. On the contrary there aren’t any patents in ‘soil remediation’ and ‘environmental monitoring’. Regarding the resting sustainable fields, ‘technologies specific to climate change mitigation’ are entirely directed to ‘capture, storage, sequestration or disposal of greenhouse gases’, technologies ‘with potential or indirect contribution to emissions mitigation mainly concern ‘hydrogen production, distribution, and storage’, while ‘emissions abatement and fuel efficiency in transportation’ are basically
involved in ‘technologies specific to propulsion using both internal combustion engine and electric motor’. Last but not least, the technological field of ‘energy efficiency in buildings and lighting’ is further specialised in ‘insulation’, ‘heating’ and ‘lighting’. The more detailed analysis shows that most patents are related to ‘insulation’, which includes both ‘thermal insulation’ and ‘double-glazing’. Regarding the economic direction of the above patents in sustainable technological fields, the further analysis shows that all fields are related to more than one industrial activities of different sectors, while a particular industrial sector may receive patents from more than one technological fields. Obviously, the fields under consideration are multidimensional, as well as complicate, mainly due to the variety of technologies they contain. There are technological fields and industrial sectors of application and use which are characterized by 100% ‘1 to 1’ correspondence. This is the case of first ‘biomass’, second ‘fuel cells’, third ‘hydro-wind power’, fourth ‘hydrogen production’, ‘fertilizers from waste’, ‘recycling’, and ‘refusederived fuel from mass burn’, fifth ‘integrated emissions control’, ‘fuel injection’ and ‘technologies specific to propulsion using electric motor’ and sixth ‘solid waste collection’ which are directed to ‘coke, refined, petroleum products and nuclear fuel’, ‘accumulators and battery’, ‘energy machinery’, ‘basic chemicals’, ‘motor vehicles’ and ‘fabricated metal products’ respectively. Moreover, patents in ‘buildings-insulation’ and ‘noise protection’ are directed to ‘non-metallic mineral products’, ‘solar power’ is linked to many industrial sectors but mainly to ‘fabricated metal products’ and ‘electronic components’, while ‘waste management’ as well as ‘water pollution abatement’ are to a large extent related to ‘basic and other chemicals’.
5.
Discussion
This paper studies innovation production in sustainable- new and emerging- technological fields based on patent data for Greece. Results show that innovation production is concentrated in certain fields related to ‘medical preparations’, the ‘agricultural sector’, ‘basic and consumer goods’, ‘elements of transporting and package’, ‘machinery’ and different as well as complementary technologies related to ‘building and construction’. Results also show that sustainable- new and emerging- technological fields are present, as they account for 10% of total patents granted in Greece during the period 1988-2010. This is the Greek internal pattern. However, what can this pattern mean to the world economy and, even more important than that, could this pattern be competitive at the international level? An answer to these questions presupposes another kind of analysis and more specific an analysis that should focus on positioning Greece at the international innovation context and comparing its performance with both the respective of other countries and in relation to the three most important procedures of patent protection (e.g. European, US Patent Office and PCT procedure). Based on the general pattern (all technological fields included) Greece is classified between positions 32 and 43. Its best position and, therefore, best relative performance is recorded in ‘sustainable fields’ according to both patent grants to EPO and patent applications to PCT (0.062% and 0.103% respectively). Its worst position and, therefore, worst performance is recorded in ‘total technological fields’ based on patent grants to the USA
Patent Office (0.009%). In general Greece performs better in ‘sustainable fields’ than in ‘total technological fields’, regardless of the Patent Office under consideration, and better at both the European Patent Office and the PCT procedure than the USA Patent Office. In addition Greece performs better in ‘sustainable fields’ than all other groups of countries, regardless of the Patent Office under consideration. In fact the Greek shares account for 10.610% at the EPO (nearly 6.5% for all groups of countries), 4.7% at the USPTO (from 3.3% to 4.8% for all groups of countries) and 12.5% at the PCT (instead of around 7% for all groups of countries). However, Greece’s share in relation to the total EU-27 members, OECD-members and World-all countries is higher in the PCT procedure, followed by the European and then the USA Patent Office. In comparison to other countries (100 in total), Greece can be grouped into the class ‘30-40’ in both the European Patent Office and the PCT procedure and ’40-50’ in the USA Patent Office. Greece presents a similar performance and thus can be grouped together with certain countries of the European Union, such as those of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia. In addition and focusing on sustainable fields, Greece performs better than the total of EU-27 members, OECD-members and Worldall countries, based on the share of these patents to the ‘total technological fields’ and in all the three Patent Offices (10.610% for Greece, 6.686% for the EU-27 members, 6.534% for the OECD-members and 6.521% for the World- all countries). In comparison also to the results presented in the section ‘main results’, thus comparing between the internal and the external patent pattern, it seems that Greece’s internal pattern is only similar to the respective of the patent grants to EPO. Table 2 presents the distribution of patents in all sustainable technological fields and subfields for Greece (internal and external patent activity), the EU-27 members, the OECDmembers and the World-100 countries based on the European Patent Office, the USA Patent Office and the PCT procedure. Particularly for the shares of EU-27 members, OECDmembers and World-100 countries which are presented at columns 6-8, these shares are calculated based on the mean of the sum of the three patent activities of the above Patent Offices for each group of countries (e.g. EU-27 members). Thus, the share 14.272 (column 6) is the mean of patent activity for the EU-27 members based on the share of the EPO (grants), the USPTO (grants) and the PCT procedure (applications). The table shows that there are significant differences between the internal and the external patent activity for Greece (columns 2 and 3-5 respectively) as well as between Greece and all other groups of countries. For instance, the internal patent activity is mainly specialised in ‘renewable energy generation’, followed by ‘waste management’ and ‘water pollution abatement’. On the contrary the specialization in ‘renewable energy generation’ isn’t so obvious in the external Greek patent activity, while in general patent activity appears more dispersed across the main sustainable technological fields. In addition, the external Greek patent activity is characterised by more relative weight in specific technological fields and their sub-categories, such as those of ‘general environmental management’, ‘technologies specific to propulsion using internal combustion engine’ and ‘fuel efficiency-improving vehicle design’, while there is no external
Table 2
Sustainable Technological fields for Greece, EU-27 members, OECD-members and World (100) in EPO, USPTO and PCT (%) Greece EU-27 OECDWorld External members members (100) Selected sustainable technological fields Internal EPO USPTO PCT Mean (% total, 3 Patent Offices)
General environmental management Air pollution abatement Water pollution abatement Waste management Soil remediation Environmental monitoring Energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources Renewable energy generation Energy generation from fuels of non-fossil origin Combustion technologies with mitigation potential Technologies for improved output efficiency Technologies for improved input efficiency Technologies specific to climate change mitigation Capture, storage, sequestration or disposal of greenhouse gases Technologies with contribution to emissions mitigation Energy storage Hydrogen production, distribution, and storage Fuel cells Emissions abatement and fuel efficiency in transportation Technologies specific to propulsion using internal combustion engine Technologies specific to propulsion using electric motor Technologies specific to hybrid propulsion Fuel efficiency-improving vehicle design Energy efficiency in buildings and lighting Insulation (incl. thermal insulation, double-glazing) Heating (incl. water and space heating; air-conditioning) Lighting (incl. CFL, LED) Source: Own elaboration of OECD Patent data.
2.970 7.723 9.703 0.000 0.000
14.384 26.027 8.219 0.000 2.055
25.000 25.000 12.500 0.000 0.000
6.417 18.717 11.230 1.070 0.000
14.272 11.180 8.528 0.642 1.053
13.984 12.207 7.979 0.980 0.917
13.906 12.420 8.134 0.982 0.900
61.188 2.178
16.438 4.110
0.000 0.000
27.807 5.348
6.113 1.324
5.423 1.287
5.550 1.333
0.000 0.000
4.110 0.000
0.000 0.000
2.139 0.000
0.961 0.329
0.955 0.306
0.962 0.305
6.733
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.873
0.985
0.973
0.000 2.772 0.594
0.000 0.000 8.219
0.000 0.000 0.000
3.209 0.535 12.834
4.487 0.638 3.763
8.022 0.863 5.226
8.009 0.875 5.127
1.386 1.188 0.000 0.396
14.384 0.000 0.000 8.219
6.250 6.250 0.000 12.500
6.417 1.070 1.070 2.139
32.241 2.823 2.139 5.697
26.274 4.303 2.915 4.529
25.864 4.289 2.886 4.503
2.178 0.594 0.396
0.000 0.000 0.000
12.500 0.000 0.000
2.139 2.139 0.000
1.546 0.723 6.054
1.287 0.805 7.869
1.276 0.825 7.601
patent activity in ‘capture, storage, sequestration or disposal of greenhouse gases’, which in the internal patent taxonomy accounts for 6.733% and is the 4th most important sub-field. Apart from differences between the Greece’s internal and external patent activity, there are also differences between Greece on the one hand and EU-27 members, OECD-members and World-100 countries on the other hand. Patent activity in all groups of countries is concentrated in ‘emissions abatement and fuel efficiency in transportation’, ‘general environmental management’ and ‘technologies with contribution to emissions mitigation’. The shares of the above technological fields are similar across them, while ‘energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources’ is under represented in comparison to the respective Greek shares, both internal and external. In general and focusing on its external patent activity, Greece performs better in ‘water pollution abatement’ and ‘waste management’ based on all three Patent Offices and in ‘renewable energy generation’, ‘technologies for improved output efficiency’, ‘fuel cells’, ‘fuel efficiency-improving vehicle design’ and ‘insulation’ based on two out of three Patent Offices. Thus, there are some encouraging facts for Greece in relation to the issue of innovation in sustainable technological fields. Particularly for these fields, existing reports show that the 80% of patent applications in this particular field come from five countries, namely those of Japan, USA, Germany, Korea and France. Approximately 1/3 of them come from Japan, the biggest inventor country. The existing international pattern shows that countries are specialized in different ‘environmental’ innovations. For instance for solar energy, while Japan, Korea and USA are dominant in solar PV, Germany and France have a leading role in solar thermal. Smaller countries have also been more active in solar thermal (e.g. Israel, Spain, and Netherlands). Denmark focuses more on wind power technologies and Norway in hydro/marine technologies. However, a number of ‘emerging’ economies are becoming increasingly active (e.g. China, India and South Africa). Geothermal is the least concentrated technology field, with just over 60% of patent applications invented by the above five major inventors, and 20% by the top inventor country, that is Japan (a similar percentage to biofuels) (OECD 2010). At the same time and according to the shares of specialization of inventor countries in the field ‘environment’, Greece is mainly specialized in solar energy, both thermal and PV, and in hydro/ marine innovations. This means that first the external patent pattern is similar to the internal and, second, the country’s performance moves to the right direction, but with very low absolute numbers (OECD 2010). In addition the Greek pattern is similar to the respective of other countries, which are characterized by nearly the same natural environment and/or geographical position and/or development level (e.g. Italy, Portugal and Spain).
6.
Conclusions and implication for policy
This paper is a first attempt to examine innovation in sustainable- new and emergingtechnological fields in Greece. Innovation plays a key role in economic development and is therefore a primary concern for practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. Innovation description and measurement has led, among other things, to the
theoretical and empirical analysis of patent value, which has contributed to the better examination and interpretation of innovation. In this context, relying on patent data, following a twofold methodology, based on both IPC codes and relevant keywords, and taking into consideration that the use of patent data could raise strong methodological issues, this paper presents the Greek case. Results show that innovations related to specific technologies of ‘human necessities’, ‘fixed constructions’ and ‘performing operations-transporting’ are the most important in quantitative terms. From an economic perspective and relating the above technological fields with industrial sectors of application and use, patents are directed to the ‘construction sector’, ‘pharmaceuticals and chemicals’, ‘foodbeverages’, ‘machinery’ and the ‘agricultural sector’. Thus, Greek innovation seems to follow a traditional pattern, closely related to the existing production structure. Nearly, 10% of Greek innovations concern sustainable technological fields, or otherwise said environmental innovations, which are further specialised in ‘energy generation from renewable and non-fossil sources’ and ‘general environmental management’. The former ends up in ‘renewable energy generation’, mainly solar and hydro, while the latter in ‘water pollution abatement’ and ‘waste management’, mainly focused on ‘solid waste collection’ and ‘material recycle’. Results also show that Greece performs better than the EU-27 members, OECD-members and the World-100 countries in sustainable fields as a whole, when comparing the respective patent shares. At the same time Greece can be grouped with several countries of the European Union. This paper may have some implications for government policy, especially now that Greece faces very severe fiscal and structural problems. Whatever Greek government does, it is necessary to ‘build’ a new development agenda and policy and the production of innovation plays a central role in this procedure. Therefore, focusing on innovation is the main challenge, but to what direction? The country needs to balance between ‘world’ and ‘endogenous’ important innovations. This means that Greece has to do two things: Look for and then develop competitive innovations, investing in its relative strengths in line with its industrial structure. If the previous analysis could be indicative of the possible technological fields the country could rely on, then there is the need to further specialize and develop competences. The existing pattern shows that innovations related to drugs-sanitary products and both the agricultural and construction industry are the most important. However, based on its geographical position and physical environment and in correspondence to the future global needs, it can be argued that only innovations related to the agricultural and construction industry could be a viable and technological direction. Therefore, sustainable forms of cultivations, investment in renewable energy technologies and ecological building could be sound technological choices. All of them build on the existing production structure, expanding their potential, while exploiting the country’s wide and diverse environmental advantages. International figures show that Greece performs much better in solar PV and onshore wind technologies, while based on the renewable energy country attractiveness the country is 21st among 40 countries. The investment in renewable resources could also help Greece reduce its energy import dependency while also contributing to environmental goals. The potential for wind is also quite high. As the discussion on planning and implementing a new development
policy has already started, the investment in these technologies could be the only solution. This study is designed to contribute to this discussion.
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